


The One Where Angel Investigations Watches Friends

by GeckoGirl89



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Baby Connor - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, Friends (TV) references, Light Angst, Lots of Joey/Rachel for a fic in a different fandom, Mentions of Past Angel/Buffy and Angel/Darla, POV Angel (BtVS), Pining, Post-Episode: s03e10 Dad, Pre-Relationship, Realization, Television Watching, Watching 8.12 (TOW Joey Dates Rachel), angsty ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:42:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeckoGirl89/pseuds/GeckoGirl89
Summary: When Angel woke up and walked into the main lobby of the hotel, he found his friends chatting about some TV show he was unfamiliar with.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on my personal tumblr suggested that Cordelia would make Angel try to watch _Friends_ since it was current when the time the show was on, and that gave me the idea for this story.
> 
> This story takes place after 3.10 (Dad) and before 3.11 (Birthday), since TOW Joey Dates Rachel aired in between those two episodes.
> 
> Joey/Rachel is one of my OTPs, so that probably colored how I wrote this story.

When Angel woke up and walked into the main lobby of the hotel, he found his friends chatting about some TV show he was unfamiliar with.

"Hey, Cordy, did you see the _Friends_ promos for this week?" Fred asked.

"Yeah, they were pretty weird and dramatic, huh?" Cordelia replied.

Gunn glanced up from the Gameboy he was using. "Yeah, I mean, Joey and Rachel? That's really out there."

Wes nodded along in agreement while Lorne frowned. "But remember the end of that last episode?" Lorne said. "There was a lot of sexual tension between them."

"But Rachel was just in her Evander Holyfield phase," Fred argued. Angel had even less of an idea of what they were talking about than before.

Wesley chuckled. "That's definitely not how it works in real life, right Cordelia?"

Angel didn't notice that Cordelia had opened her mouth to reply and finally asked the question that had been bugging him for the past couple of minutes. "What's an Evander Holyfield phase? And who are Rachel and Joey?"

Everyone turned to stare at Angel as if he had just arrived from another planet, and he squirmed at the attention he was receiving.

Gunn's eyes widened as he turned to Fred. "Did he just ask who Rachel and Joey are? I know the guy is kind of behind on pop culture, but _damn_."

Fred looked equally baffled. "I was in a cave for five years, and I still know who the main characters are."

Cordelia turned to face Angel. "Have you never seen _Friends_ , Angel?"

Angel fidgeted awkwardly. "No. Is it a big deal or something?"

"It's the most popular show on American television right now," Wesley explained. "I'm surprised you haven't heard of it before."

"You need to watch it," Cordelia declared. "There's more to pop culture than Charlton Heston movies and Barry Manilow. When Connor gets older, he's going to need to know about popular TV shows if you want him to be one of the cool kids." She sighed. "I guess it will probably be up to me to make sure that Connor is up to date with current stuff."

Angel sat down in a nearby chair when Cordy referred to his son as if she were his mother. He felt so tempted to embrace her in that moment, but Angel knew that it would probably reveal too much of his feelings, feelings that even he couldn't fully understand. Lately, his thoughts about her had taken odd directions, like thinking of her as the mother of his child. It had felt so natural to let Cordelia assume a prominent role in his son's life. She had been the first person besides him to hold Connor, and seeing them together in that way sent an overwhelming surge of love and protectiveness through him. He surreptitiously stared at her, wondering, not for the first time, what he should do.

Lorne's enthusiastic voice drew Angel out of his examination of Cordelia's face. "You know what would be fun? We could all watch the new episode together this week if there's no visions or anything."

Cordelia smiled over at Angel. "You up for it, broody boy?"

He couldn't really deny her anything when she looked at him that way. "Sure."

"Don't worry. I'll explain the basics for you before the new episode starts. Just like I did with Fred."

Fred nodded. "Cordy's real good at explaining. She helped me understand what was going on even though I missed the whole Chandler and Monica storyline."

"Well, that's what syndication's for," Cordy said. "If you like the new episode, you can catch up with Fred. She's been watching a lot of reruns."

"It helps a lot," Fred confirmed.

Wesley cleared his throat. "So that's all settled? We're watching the new episode here on Thursday if nothing else comes up?"

The rest of the team agreed to the plan, and their conversations drifted to other topics until Cordy got a vision that they needed to handle.

* * *

On Thursday night, Gunn rigged the television that he had previously used to play video games against Angel for regular viewing. Everyone was getting snacks before the show started.

Cordelia passed Angel a glass of blood before she put a bag of popcorn in the microwave. "So, uh, Cordy, you said you would explain stuff for me?"

"Right, okay. Well the first thing to understand is that the show is a sitcom. Do you know what that is?"

Angel had remembered catching some episodes of _I Love Lucy_ and other shows like it. The most recent sitcom he had seen was _Laverne & Shirley_. "I've seen some." He smirked. "All way before your time, of course."

"Typical, considering how much of an old fogey you are," Cordy teased. She smiled at him as she got a soda out of the fridge for herself. "Right, well this one is about six single, twenty-something friends living in New York City."

Gunn grabbed a drink for himself. "Hence, the title of the show."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "The characters are Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Rachel, and Joey. I'll point out who they are when you see them. Chandler and Monica have been dating for a while and got married at the end of last season. Phoebe hasn't had a really serious relationship in a while. Ross and Rachel have this whole big, dramatic will they/won't they thing. He had a crush on her since they were in high school. They were together a really long time ago, but then Ross screwed it up by cheating on her with the girl from the copy place."

Lorne entered the kitchen. "Is the popcorn ready yet? Fred said the show is going to start in a few minutes."

"Almost," Cordy answered. The microwave beeped, and Cordy poured the popcorn into a large bowl. She turned her attention to Angel. "Come on, let's go."

Angel followed her out of the kitchen. "Anyway, since then, they've kind of teased the idea of putting them back together a few times but haven't done it."

"So that's why everybody was confused about the Rachel and Joey thing," Angel concluded.

"Exactly." She sat down on the couch, pulling Angel's arm so that he sat next to her. She furrowed her brow as Fred sat down next to Cordy on her other side, unnoticed, and began munching on the popcorn. Angel thought Cordy looked adorable when she was thoughtful, but he kept that thought to himself. "Joey and Rachel have always just been friends. They did seem to get closer after they became roommates, but that's it. Plus, Ross and Rachel has always seemed like this big deal, you know?"

Angel didn't really know, but he nodded along anyway. His relationship with Buffy had been like that, a big deal to them and to everyone else who surrounded them. She had been his first love, and Angel had been shocked and guilty when she temporarily died and he found out that he was sad but capable of living without her. The revelation that he had apparently moved on from Buffy without realizing it, along with his developing feelings for Cordelia, were confusing him immensely.

"So, another big thing this season is that Rachel is pregnant with Ross's baby," Cordy continued.

Angel shook his head. "I thought you said they weren't together?"

Gunn snorted from his position in front of the couch. Wesley and Lorne were sitting next to him. "Typical Ross and Rachel."

"They had a drunken hookup last season," Wesley clarified. "Like you and Darla. It didn't mean they were in love."

Angel grimaced at the reminder of how he had slept with his sire in a fit of despair. That period last year when he had become estranged from his friends was not one that he planned to repeat. When Cordelia found out, she had been angry at Angel for lying to her and had only forgiven him after Angel saved her from Darla's attempts to bite her. He glanced at Cordelia, who was looking despondent at the reminder of that time as she ate a handful of popcorn from her bowl.

Angel cleared his throat. "Was there anything else?"

"Huh?" Cordy shook off her depressed reverie. "Oh, yeah, Monica is Ross's little sister. I guess there's a lot more to explain, but it's already the eighth season."

He gave her a small smile. "It's okay. You're doing a good job."

She smiled back at him, and they stared into each other's eyes for a few seconds. Fred announced that the show was starting, and Angel awkwardly broke their stare, turning to focus on the television.

Cordy explained that the people in the opening scene were Phoebe, Monica, and Chandler, and that Phoebe was the blonde woman. Angel grinned at Monica's reaction to the huge present. It sounded like something Cordy would say if she got an enormous present. Everybody chuckled when Monica's favorite "game" at the arcade was apparently a vending machine, and Cordelia whispered that Monica used to be overweight as a child, which helped the joke make more sense to Angel.

The opening credits began, and Cordelia whispered the names of the various characters as they appeared. He was glad to have someone to explain things for him, and secretly, he was glad for Cordy's proximity.

After the credits, Cordelia murmured that the characters were in Central Perk, a café where the characters often liked to hang out, before letting her head rest on Angel's shoulder.

Angel watched Rachel and Joey's scene with Ross, noting that they seemed more like a couple than Rachel and Ross did. They both shared the compatibility of not wanting to hear about Ross's job, and their positions on the couch indicated a comfortable familiarity not too dissimilar from how Cordy was sitting with Angel right now.

Cordy sighed when Rachel talked about how much she missed dating. Angel glanced over at her, wondering if she also missed going out on dates. He hadn't really heard of her dating anyone since the Wilson Christopher incident, and she hadn't seem interested in anyone since that brief thing with the Groosalugg in Pylea. Angel felt guilty and wondered if being his seer had deprived Cordelia of the kind of life she wanted. But at the same time, the thought of her going out on dates with strange men gave Angel a sinking feeling in his gut. He wrapped his arm around her and decided to focus on the program.

His eyebrows rose a little when Joey said that he would take Rachel out on a date. Was _this_ supposed to be the platonic friendship the others had been discussing? This Joey guy seemed awfully eager to take Rachel on a date.

"This makes more sense than what they were showing in the previews," Wesley said. The others nodded in agreement, and Angel decided that he must have been missing something.

He sipped at his blood as he watched the next scene with Chandler, Monica, and Phoebe. Gunn snickered when Monica said that Chandler sucked at Ms. Pacman and turned to face Angel.

"Hey, Angel, I think we found someone as bad at video games as you." The others laughed at his pronouncement.

Angel pouted. "I'm not that bad." It was just the newfangled contraptions that confounded him. He would probably not be as terrible with an arcade game.

Fred smirked. "He's right. There's no way Chandler is as bad as Angel."

Everyone else laughed even louder at the normally sweet Fred's sassy remark. Cordelia winced when she got soda up her nose.

"You all right, Cordy?"

Cordelia recovered and gestured back to the TV. "I'm fine. Watch the show, Angel."

Angel saw Monica trying to lift a limp Phoebe from her chair before the scene transitioned to Rachel getting ready for her "date." Rachel answered the doorbell to Joey, who was standing there as if he was picking her up for the date. When he revealed the flowers he had been hiding behind his back, Lorne's "aww" echoed the studio audience.

Fred sighed wistfully as Rachel, apparently touched by Joey's gesture, took the flowers. "That was really sweet."

"I know," Cordy replied. "If a guy did that for me..." She let her thought drift off and ate another mouthful of popcorn.

Angel imagined himself arriving at Cordelia's door with a bouquet before he took her out for a romantic dinner. He forced himself to ignore the idea and re-focused on the television. Rachel and Joey seemed to flirt pretty naturally for two platonic friends as they pretended that they weren't roommates. When Rachel said that she thought Joey might be gay, Angel remembered how Cordelia had called him a eunuch. Joey seemed about as thrilled with Rachel's joke as Angel had been at Cordelia's remark.

The next scene showed Ross attempting to make his way to his graduate seminar. Everyone laughed when Ross arrived only to have enough time to introduce himself before the class ended.

After that, the show revealed Rachel and Joey at the restaurant. They smiled and bantered with each other as they discussed the moves they would use on their real dates. Angel wondered if that was how he would act on a date with Cordelia. He always found himself smiling more around her. Years ago, when he had been waiting to meet up with Buffy, Cordy had made him laugh when she told him about how the leather interior in her Barbie Dream Car was better than the seats in Devon's convertible. She always made him smile, even though he wasn't really the smiling type.

Joey watched Rachel walk off to the restroom, and Angel considered how his eyes had been riveted to Cordelia lately. He glanced at her and saw that she was staring at the television, captivated with what she was seeing. He finished his glass of blood, putting it on the coffee table.

In the next scene, Monica and Chandler talked about the game. Angel was amused at Chandler's clawed hand and at the innuendo regarding the screen names he had chosen for the arcade machine.

Angel's mood became more reflective when he saw Joey and Rachel returning from their date. He glanced at the empty glass of blood sitting in front of him. Joey and Rachel's comfort eating their leftovers reminded him of how Cordelia always handed him his blood as if it was similar to the popcorn she and Fred were eating.

Angel laughed at the description of Joey's end of the night move. _Shiny raspberry lip balm?_ Thank God he had never been desperate enough to resort to such measures.

And then Rachel demonstrated her move. Joey reacted precisely as Angel would have in that situation. He was reminded how Cordelia had gotten so close to him, pressing the practice sword near his neck, when he first began training her. Angel had needed to make a dumb joke to conceal how much Cordelia's closeness impacted him.

Rachel casually kissed Joey's cheek and walked off to her bedroom. Joey freaked out once Rachel left, and Angel internally freaked out too. He really needed to stop thinking of him and Cordy when he saw their scenes.

Lorne groaned when the show cut to a commercial break. "Do they really have to do this now?"

Cordy smiled. "They always do that." She turned to face Angel. "What do you think of the show so far, Angel?"

Angel shrugged. "It's good. It's funny, but they have some nice dramatic stuff too."

"I'm glad you're enjoying it." She snuggled closer to his side, and Angel was glad that he was a vampire. If he was human, his pulse would have been audible to everyone in the room at this point.

After a couple of commercials, Fred spoke. "You know, this Rachel and Joey thing isn't as weird as I thought it would be."

Lorne hummed in agreement. "They definitely had some _moira_ in that last scene."

Wes, Gunn, and Cordy frowned in confusion at the unfamiliar term, and Angel maintained a neutral expression, pretending like he had never heard of that word. Fred met his eyes over Cordelia's head and smirked at him, clearly recalling the conversation they had just before Darla showed up. Angel scowled faintly. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn that Fred had been reading his thoughts, noting all of the comparisons he had drawn between Rachel and Joey and his relationship with Cordy.

When the show came back on, Ross was telling Rachel about his problem with the class. The bit about "The Geller Yeller" was particularly funny.

Angel couldn't help feeling sympathetic towards Joey during his conversation with Rachel on the couch. He had seemed so hopeful about Rachel also feeling "weird" after their date, but it turned out that the lobster had made her sick. It reminded him of the times when Angel believed Cordy had been saying she loved him, but it turned out she was speaking to the Groosalugg or just saying that she loved everyone on the team. Those incidents had made Angel feel strangely disappointed even though they shouldn't have bothered him at all.

The next couple of scenes showed Phoebe, Monica, and Chandler at the Ms. Pacman machine and Ross trying to get to his class again. Angel laughed when Ross collapsed in front of his class and shared a private smile with Cordy, who grinned back at him. Ross's fall was reminiscent of when Wesley had fallen over the coffee beans Angel had accidentally spilled on the floor during his first year with them. Wes had come a long way since then and was far more confident and less awkward than he had been when he first joined the team.

In the next scene, Joey was on a date with another woman. He was obviously distracted and thinking of Rachel, but his oblivious, dimwitted date didn't understand what Joey meant when he talked about seeing someone in a different way. The date went off to the restroom, just as Rachel had earlier in the episode. Joey watched her walk away as well, but he seemed crestfallen by the fact that she wasn't Rachel.

Gunn huffed out a breath. "Damn, now I feel bad for him."

Angel felt bad for him too. Judging by the sad expressions on their faces, everyone else felt the same way.

The next scene returned to a comedic mood as Phoebe attempted to beat Chandler's scores at the arcade machine. Everyone laughed loudly when Phoebe's cursing in front of Ross's son was substituted with opera music and when she tried to hide the machine after her lengthy swearing session. That was one of the best gags Angel had ever seen.

The show transitioned to Rachel watching _Cujo_ alone. Joey entered the room and told Rachel that his date hadn't worked out. He seemed hesitant as Rachel asked him to watch the movie with her, but Rachel pulled him into the chair next to her and buried her head in his chest.

"Aren't you scared?" Rachel's question echoed throughout the room. Cordelia was holding her breath, and Angel gazed at her. After watching this episode, Cordelia's position with her head resting over his unbeating heart felt intimate. Much too intimate to be attributed to close friendship. Angel had held Cordelia before during a vision or as she recovered from the aftermath, but holding her now as they watched TV, when it wasn't strictly necessary, had different implications.

"Terrified." Joey wrapped his arms around Rachel's shaking body, and the look on his face showed that he wasn't scared of the movie.

The crickets chirped for a moment, and the sound of Connor's cries from the baby monitor broke the tension. Angel removed his arm from Cordelia and stood.

"I guess I've got to go now," he said.

Cordy shrugged. "All that's left is an end credits scene, anyway. Go take care of Connor and give him a kiss from Aunt Cordy."

"Will do." Angel exited the room, mind racing with the panic he had felt before Connor had given him a convenient excuse to leave. Angel felt frightened as he went upstairs to his room, and it wasn't really due to the compelling sitcom. The show merely highlighted feelings he had held in his heart for some time now, feelings that he could never express due to his curse and his fear at how Cordy might react. Angel finally admitted the truth to himself. He had fallen in love with Cordelia a long time ago.

He changed his son's dirty diaper and rocked him to sleep. "What am I gonna do, little man?"

Connor yawned and closed his eyes. He had no answer to offer his father.

Angel pressed a kiss to Connor's forehead and placed him down in the crib. His son fell asleep within seconds.

"I guess that's your way of telling me to figure this out on my own."

Silence answered Angel as his son dozed off, carefree and unaware of his father's turmoil. Angel stared at his son for a moment before he walked away, gently shutting the door behind him. He returned downstairs, prepared to act fine around his friends, to hide how Cordy had started to mean too much to him. He hoped he would succeed.


End file.
